09.02.09 Progress through Partnership
Change Immigration Court Policy
Promote Due Process of Law and Save Taxpayer Money
We have in the United States an immigration court system in which hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year defend their right to stay in this country. It is astonishing that people facing such dire circumstances - continued incarceration, permanent separation from family members, or even removal to a country where they may face persecution or death - must file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the government to obtain copies of their own case records. According to an Appleseed report on the immigration courts, Assembly Line Injustice, this process can take months - in 2008, the average was 230 days - needlessly delaying the immigrant's hearing and often requiring prolonged detention, away from family and without employment. This unnecessary roadblock - one rarely found in other American court systems - can also leave the immigrant with inadequate time to prepare his or her case, violating basic principles of fairness and due process. It hardly holds up American courts as shining beacons of fairness, legitimacy and efficiency.
In the end, both the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) of the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) of the Department of Justice, which maintain various parts of the case records, deny less than one percent of properly submitted FOIA requests for immigration case files. The request process, then, is nothing more than a bureaucratic requirement that merely obstructs justice. It also increases costs for the agencies and frustrates the ability of immigration judges to run their dockets efficiently. For fiscal year 2008, USCIS employed 185 people full-time solely to review FOIA requests. The cost of processing all these requests exceeded $12 million, with filing fees only paying about 0.04 percent of that amount. Taxpayers picked up the rest of the tab. Similarly, EOIR employed 10 people full-time at a cost to taxpayers exceeding $1 million. Because of these arcane and arbitrary roadblocks to obtaining case files, judges often must delay hearings due to the delay caused by the FOIA requirement, or require the immigrant to proceed without any access to his or her records.
Immigrants should be given immediate and automatic access to their case records maintained by USCIS and by EOIR. One improvement can be easily achieved immediately by the DOJ by making simple changes to the Immigration Court Practice Manual. Such changes would save taxpayer money, enable judges to run their dockets efficiently, and allow immigrants who have valid claims to stay in the U.S. the ability to raise those claims in a timely manner. Appleseed has already drafted the proposed language changes for DOJ. Now it is their time to act.
Vikas Didwania, PILI Fellow
Malcolm C. Rich, Executive Director
Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice
Betsy Cavendish, Executive Director
Appleseed
James F. Rogers, Latham & Watkins LLP
Counsel to Appleseed
2009 Annual Luncheon Raffle
Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers are proud to have a raffle drawing as part of this year's Annual Luncheon festivities. Prizes include:
- One week in an ocean-view vacation home located in beautiful Laguna Niguel, California
- An overnight stay and breakfast for two at the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago
- Four tickets to see the Chicago Bulls Four tickets to the Second City and a gift certificate to Petterino's
- And more!
Raffle tickets are $20.00 each, and can be purchased from any Chicago Appleseed and Council Board member from September 1 to September 24. Raffle tickets are also available by contacting Amanda Grant at 312-988-6599, and will be sold during the reception hour at the event. Winner need not be present to win. Drawing will occur on October 1, 2009.
Thanks to the following companies and organizations who donated prizes to the raffle:
The East Bank Club
A Red Orchid Theater
The Four Seasons Hotel Chicago
The Chicago Bulls (courtesy of DLA Piper US LLP)
Maxwell's
The Second City
Sports Authority
TimeLine Theatre Co.
A World Class Concierge Service, Inc.
Petterino's
CCL Recommends Establishment of an Inquiry Commission on War on Terror
Prompted by the CIA's release of its Inspector General's 2004 report detailing abuses of detainees by CIA interrogators and contractors, including mock executions and holding guns and power tools to detainees' heads, Attorney General Holder has appointed a prosecutor to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against interrogators who exceeded the interrogation guidelines established by the Justice Department. Also this week, President Obama decided to continue the practice of forcibly delivering persons suspected of terrorism to other countries for interrogation. These decisions highlight the need for Americans to know more about what our government has done in the war on terror.
The Chicago Council of Lawyers recommends that Congress and the President create an independent bipartisan inquiry commission to investigate the government's use of torture, extraordinary rendition, warrantless electronic surveillance by the National Security Administration, and secret detention centers. The commission could build on the results of pending investigations by Congressional committees and the White House, but should also have its own subpoena power to independently investigate our government's practices. The commission should be given a fixed term, we suggest 18 months, after which it would issue a report.
Such a commission will encourage informed public discussion of whether the President has the authority to engage in these activities, and whether it is desirable for the United States to continue to do so. This debate is the hallmark of democracy, and is long overdue. But without access to more complete information, any debate will be hamstrung from the outset.
For further information, contact Malcolm Rich, Executive Director of Chicago Council of Lawyers, at (312) 988-6565, or Gordon Waldron, Chair, Civil Liberties Committee, Chicago Council of Lawyers, at (708) 288-6747.